The Thing With Statistics - Via

The thing with statistics - via

sometimes you really just gotta say “that’s not my business” and move on

In honor of Halloween month, I will be watching a lot of horror movies till the month is over.

Well.

I should probably say "Horror" movies. The primary categories of which are:

A handful of actual, fairly solid genuine horror movies with creepy vibes and not a lot of slasher gore-gore-gore.

Some very solid horror comedies, but an eclectic mix that definitely leaves out many of what most horror buffs would consider horror comedy staples.

A few movies that are technically billed as horror and have many horror elements, but also wind up being honestly kind of sweet comfort movies with happy (or at least happy-ish) endings?

A lot of delightfully weird, low-budget romps (where weird, here, very emphatically does not mean anything resembling 'artsy') that only classify as horror in the most technical of senses, such as "Slotherhouse" and "Aaah! Zombies!!" (the first of which is about an animal trafficked sloth murdering its way through a sorority house; and the second of which has a level of effort put into its creation that I think can be best described as, "exactly the amount up to which the people involved were still having fun, and absolutely not one single iota of effort more," which in the case of this movie was also objectively the correct amount of effort).

American Psycho II, which I feel like deserves its own category as a movie that had literally nothing to do with American Psycho, had been fully filmed and was basically on final edits, when it was forced to add a few new scenes and a handful of voiceovers to make it (very vaguely) related to American Psycho for entirely marketing purposes, and then proceeded to absolutely bomb in reviews because it was billed as a sequel but actually has literally 0% of anything to do with the movie it was billed as a sequel to for 100% nonsense publicity reasons. It also features Bill Shatner at his post-Star Trek Bill Shatner-y best, Mila Kunis carrying most of the movie as pretty much the only cast member capable of acting, and a plot that only barely makes sense sometimes, but still makes me laugh in delight every time. Really, the only thing that even remotely justifies this movie's attempt to bill itself as an American Psycho sequel is that otherwise, I might never have encountered it, and that would frankly be a tragedy.

And it occurs to me that if I happen to have any followers who have always vaguely wanted to participate in Halloween Month Movie watchings but also have super weird and often nonsensically specific taste in horror or horror-adjacent movies like I do, I would be totally down to offer personal recommendations from any and all of these categories (with or without plot summaries, insofar as there exists a plot to be summarized).

My credentials are: I love stories, and as a consequence I have consumed a lot of stories over my 3+ decades of life so far; I have extremely random taste that covers the whole range from "matches up with popular expectations" to "I think this movie is genuinely brilliant and do not get why so many people don't like it" to "bad"; and finally I am very good at finding extremely esoteric offerings + having a range of very typical to very very atypical takes on more well known offerings, too.

Just here after rereading the latest chapter of Maneater yet again, to say that I am Very Excited about that Oliver PoV chapter coming next! No pressure re writing time (writing takes as long as it takes, and anyway it would be terribly hypocritical of my slow ass to demand anyone else write faster!), just already commented on the chapter and wanted to come flail a bit more in your direction about how much I love your Felix and Oliver, and how feral I am gonna be over the next chapter <3

xD I am finally getting around to responding to comments today and Can Confirm that Felix will continue to lose gay chicken for...the rest of the fic basically. And be massive losers together. Tis their natural state.

I do have the next 6-7 chaps written from when I was speeding through writing, it's more the stalling out beyond that and *then* needing to edit before posting that slows me down lol, but I still love them. Waaay too much (wearing Oliver's watch while I write this lol).

I'm glad you like how I write them! They've definitely fallen into a specific interpretation that built up a lot as I wrote the fic (going in with a clear vision, who??), and Oliver especially only felt more 'solid' once I went into his POV, and even that's in a funny mood for him since he's very...peaceful yet predatory?

Here's a lil snippet!

Felix. Oh, Felix.

Even now, he can surprise Oliver more than anyone alive.

He wants to laugh. He’s already cried plenty. Felix is- He defies explanation, defies logic, emotional and reckless to the very end, and incapable of slamming the brakes on his own careening car. Felix can’t see himself as being able to crash, confident he could swerve out of the way the very last second - and quietly soothed by the certainty someone else will provide the cushioning if necessary, even if he doesn’t like to consciously think of it.

Oliver isn’t a cushion. He’s a cement blockade covered in fucking spikes, and he imagines pressing his cigarette on the soft, vulnerable skin at the back of Felix’s neck. Just for the smell of him when he burns.

He’d sooner stub it out on his own eye than hurt Felix. Grind it in, to form a better reminder.

Greedy, disgusting thing. A thing wanted by Felix Catton. The contradiction could drive a man to madness, and he already made his camp there years ago. The nature of what he is demands it.

How much more will I get?

It’s a question he’s been asking since he first decided to talk to Felix, rather than kill him like he felt he had to, the second Felix sent him a distracted smile through the window.

tfw "popular" fanon becomes so embedded in a fandom & discussions within fandom spaces that people just start treating it as the default and all interactions with others are coloured by this interpretation. have you considered that I actually don't subscribe to this take, which is nowhere in the source material? wait nvm, clearly not.

*cups ao3 author's face in my hands gently* please. you are the only one who understands the blorbos correctly. you must write more.